


Cycles

by taykash



Category: Arashi (Band)
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 02:42:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,309
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101432
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/taykash/pseuds/taykash
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sho doesn't want to go to Chiba, but he has to. He meets Aiba, though.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Cycles

**Author's Note:**

> For Aiba's birthday. (Posted it [to LJ](http://taykash.livejournal.com/13038.html) on time, but forgot to post it here...)
> 
> Love forever to [LTGMars](http://archiveofourown.org/users/LTGMars).

The Chiba seaside was not where Sho wanted to be. His summer plans were to play rugby with his Keio buddies and get into trouble in trashy nightclubs around Tokyo, but instead he was sitting on the wraparound porch of the house his parents rented in the middle of nowhere, Chiba. The sea breeze reached him, bringing the smell of salt to rest on his skin, but he would have preferred to smell the sickly-sweet smell of liquor brought to him by cute girls.

At least Chiba was better than his grandparents’ place in Gunma. Gunma was nothing but mountains and boredom. At least in Chiba he could swim and eat fresh seafood.

The car ride from Tokyo was only about two hours long, but it felt like forever. He spent the whole time staring out the window as they passed through suburbia on overpasses, narrowing his eyes at the glittering sea just beyond the buildings laid out in front of them like a city planning smorgasbord.

When they arrived, the neighborhood was quiet. The house was only a short walk away from the beach, and one block away was a small park complete with a jungle gym and swing set. The sky was overcast with the threat of rain hanging in the air, so there were only a few kids playing tag in the grass. As the Sakurai family brought their things into the house, he could already hear his little sister gushing over the bay window in the living room and the baby, Shu, begging to go to the park. Sho finally picked up his backpack full of books, mostly textbooks for his fall semester classes, and headed inside with a sigh.

It rained that night, a strong storm that made the windows rattle. Sho, a natural worrier, couldn’t help but check for potential tsunami warnings on his phone as he watched the angry gray sea churn up white foam.

The sun rose the next morning bright and warm, drying out the residual moisture left on the streets. Sho was still in bed, the covers pulled up over his head, when his door slammed open and his mom walked in.

“Get out of the house,” she said, yanking his covers down after opening his curtains. “It’s a nice day and you need sunshine.”

“Vacation is for sleeping,” he whined, trying to grab his blankets back, his legs white against his red patterned sheets. “I can go out later.”

“Your siblings are already out. Your father and I are going to run errands and we’re not leaving you here to rot in this bed. Your breakfast will be ready in fifteen minutes.” She swept out of the room, taking his blankets with her.

Sho stared sleepily after her, his eyebrows furrowed in annoyance.

He found himself walking along the beach about an hour later, the sand warm under his toes. His shoulders relaxed as he walked, and he let himself slouch a little the way he never would in Tokyo. The breeze was warm, ruffling through his hair, and he closed his eyes as he strolled alongside the gentle waves.

A yelp of “ah, sorry!” is all he heard before he found himself lying face down, his mouth full of sand.

“I didn’t see you coming,” Sho heard as he rolled over, spitting and rubbing the sand out of his eyes.

“What the hell were you doing?” Sho finally managed to croak out, still trying to clean his mouth out. His throat worked as he tried to repress his gag reflex from being triggered by all the tiny particles stuck to the inside of his cheeks.

“Here,” he found a water bottle in front of his face. Sho took it without a word, and rinsed his mouth with the lukewarm water.

“Sorry, I was looking for shells, and I guess you didn’t see me crouching there,” the voice was apologetic, and Sho finally squinted up. The sun was behind the guy’s face, so all he could see was a halo of permed golden hair.

“I’m Aiba!” he continued as Sho stood up, dusting the sand off of his knees. 

Sho kept his eyes narrowed at the guy, thrown off by the sudden introduction. “Sakurai Sho,” he replied, not bothering to hide the irritation in his voice. "What were you doing looking for shells anyway?" he asked with a sigh. Aiba looked to be around his age, but he had a basket full of shells slung over one arm. Most of them were tiny, no bigger than his thumbnail, but he had three massive conch shells sitting in a row.

"Oh, you know," he said vaguely, before brightening up. "Wanna help me look?"

Sho hadn't looked for seashells since he was a child. His beach escapades with his siblings mostly meant he would wake up buried in sand after a hard-earned nap, but shells rarely factored in.

"Okay," he agreed.

Sho went home that day with a plastic bowl full of shells and a new phone number in his contact list. He could already feel the sunburn on the back of his neck, having forgotten to either put sunblock on or wear a towel, but even the tingly feeling of imminent pain couldn’t get Aiba’s face out of his mind. They hadn’t stopped talking the whole time they were scouring the beach, crouching down like children with sand sifting through their fingers, and the only reason they had parted was Aiba’s promise to have been home for dinner at his grandparents’.

“Did you have fun?” Sho’s mom asked him when he walked in.

“I guess,” he replied as he walked up the stairs, carefully putting his bowl of shells on top of the mostly-empty bookshelf.

\-----

His mother didn’t have to shove him out of the house the next day.

“This is my brother’s bike,” Aiba introduced when Sho turned up at his house. They didn’t live far from each other, about a fifteen minute walk through a quiet residential area. The ocean was nearby and seagulls cawed as Sho walked past front yard gardens and cats sunning themselves on cement walls.

“I want to show you the nice parts of Chiba,” Aiba said with a grin as he wheeled out his own bike. “I hope you weren’t planning on having dinner at home.”

Sho shrugged. “It doesn’t really matter.” Sho had grabbed leftovers the night before and had eaten them in his room, watching an old American TV show on his laptop for English listening practice. He hadn’t heard much at all; he couldn’t stop thinking about the way the sun shone gold on Aiba’s skin.

“I hope you wore sunscreen today,” Aiba laughed as he hopped onto his bike, already beginning to pedal quickly away. Sho shook his head with a smile as he followed him.

Sho, economics geek, could talk about Chiba’s geography for days, about the current that kept it warmer in winter and cooler in summer than Tokyo and how suited to farming its land is. He could wax poetic about its industrial sector and how important Chiba was to Japan’s economy and GDP. But knowing all of the facts, he realized as they cycled through the countryside, was nothing like actually being there. 

Aiba chattered the whole way as they traveled, but Sho absorbed none of his speech. Sho liked to travel, had been overseas with his family multiple times, but Chiba was essentially in his backyard and he’d never realized the beauty of its ocean. The roads were smoothly paved, and the sea glittered beneath the bright sun. Aiba greeted everyone they passed whether he knew them or not.

They had ridden their bikes for close to an hour before Aiba said, “Okay, we’re here,” before taking a right turn. They parked at a quiet pier, mostly empty except for a few old ladies cleaning shrimp and gossiping about their grandchildren.

“I like this place,” Aiba explained as they walked towards an outcropping of rocks. “No one ever comes here. It’s quiet. Plus you can catch crabs, if you want.” He picked his way towards a large, smooth rock by the edge of the sea and sat on it, the water lapping at his toes.

“It’s pretty far,” Sho noted, though he already felt completely relaxed by the soothing nature of the area.

“Had to find some place my brother wouldn’t follow me to,” Aiba said with a grin. “Anywhere closer to the house and he’d find me for sure.”

Sho laughed, and sat down on a boulder not far from Aiba’s. “Why did you need to find somewhere so quiet, anyway?”

Aiba squinted up at the sky. “You know. Not everything is great all of the time. Sometimes you need to,” he puffed out a breath of air, “decompress.”

“I get that,” Sho said with a knowing nod, thinking of all the books he’d left behind in his college apartment. “Must be nice having someplace to go. I just get drunk with my friends on the weekends,” he laughed, splashing his feet in the water.

“Well, that works,” Aiba replied, laughing so that his eyes crinkled up. “We can do that too, if you want. My parents own a restaurant so there’s always a lot of beer around.”

“Are you gonna inherit it?” Sho asked bluntly, leaning over to grab a handful of wet sand. “The restaurant.”

“I don’t know,” Aiba said, looking down at the water. It was shallow but clear, with sea glass glinting in the sun. “I don’t really like cooking. My brother is younger than me but he’s better at it...everything I make either tastes like mabo or nothing at all.” He laughed. “I’m supposed to though. Oldest son.”

“My dad’s a politician,” Sho shielded his eyes from the sun, squinting at the dock. A family had arrived with two small children, and the father was setting up a fishing pole as the mother set out a blanket. “It’s expected that I’ll graduate from Keio and go into business or something, if not follow my dad into politics.”

“Do you want to?” Aiba asked, following Sho’s gaze. The children were of elementary school age, the little girl sticking to her older brother like baby ducks.

“Not really. But I don’t know what I want to do, either.” He groaned, dropping his hand and leaning until his back hit the rock behind him, leaving him almost completely horizontal. “I’d rather just stay here and let everyone else figure it out.”

“Stay over at my place tonight,” Aiba suggested suddenly. “We can set up a tent in the backyard and drink until we pass out.”

Sho looked up at Aiba, wanting to trace the features of his face with his fingertips. “Yeah, let’s.”

\-----

By the time they were in the tent, Sho’s body ached from the long bike ride and the heat of the sun had tired him out. The beer was cold as it slid down his throat, and the ground was hard but Aiba had brought in what seemed like all the pillows in the entire neighborhood.

“This is the best,” Aiba said with a high, satisfied noise. “I like sleeping out here. It’s the closest thing to camping I’ve done.”

“I haven’t gone camping, either, so this is new,” Sho replied, peeking out of the tent to look up at the stars. “You can’t see most of these stars in Tokyo. Too much light.”

“You trade in the stars for neon,” Aiba said, tapping his fingernails against the can. “It depends on what you like.”

Sho sat back up, biting his lip as he looked at Aiba. Sho wasn’t anywhere near inexperienced; he’d been popular with girls since junior high, both because of his looks and because of his money. Sho’d had a passing interest in some boys, but had never bothered to pursue anything because he’d had a string of girls available instead.

Aiba was beautiful, though, and there he was in reach, laughing at nothing but the stars, and Sho couldn’t help but lean forward to kiss him.

Aiba didn’t fight, but he did respond eagerly, his mouth tasting like beer against Sho’s. They fought for control, eventually falling back against the pillows.

\-----

They spent the rest of the summer glued at the hip, sneaking into each other’s rooms at night to sleep together. Sometimes they laid there whispering quietly in the dark, so close their breaths brushed over each other’s cheeks; other times they explored each other’s bodies, muffling their noises with their own hands in order not to wake their families. Eventually, though, the summer came to an end.

“It’s not that far,” Sho murmured into Aiba’s hair, the old air conditioner noisily blowing cold air over them. “We can see each other all the time.”

“Yeah,” Aiba responded quietly, but Sho could hear the tears in his voice.

\-----

A few months later, after the heat of summer had cooled enough to reveal the fiery autumn foliage, Sho was leaving Keio’s campus in search for a cheap lunch bento. He was walking while flipping through a book he’d just taken out of the library, so he didn’t notice the person standing in the middle of the street until he physically ran into him. 

“Sorry!” he yelped, but the response was nothing a familiar breathy giggle.

“Hi, Sho-chan,” Aiba said with his crinkle-eyed smile. He was wearing nicer clothes than Sho had ever seen him in; gone were the ripped shorts, replaced by nice jeans and a low v-neck. “Now it’s your turn to take me to your favorite spots.”

Sho gaped at him like a fish, his mouth open and eyes wide, before he broke into a grin. He shut his book with a definitive snap and grabbed Aiba’s hand. “Let’s go get some bikes,” he said, “And I’ll show you everything.”


End file.
